


And Few Finds the Way

by marybarrymore



Category: 14th Century CE RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:14:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26930479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marybarrymore/pseuds/marybarrymore
Summary: Two English knights, Sir John Clanvowe and Sir Willim Neville, were at Galata. One of them was ill and dying.
Relationships: Sir William Neville/Sir John Clanvowe
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	And Few Finds the Way

**Author's Note:**

> I apologise for although I've done my best at the moment the work is still short and horribly written

"But, a God's half, why?"

He could hear William's voice outside the cell, raving at the poor Dominicans, and felt a sudden temptation to laugh. But William strode in the next moment, bringing with him the heat of Galata into his small, unlit cell.

The heat was almost unbearable.

"Now, William Neville," John Clanvowe said, trying to sit up in his bed, "roaring at the monks again, are you not? I told you not to act so unmannerly."

"I've sent for them," William interrupted him, and, seeing his puzzled look, added, "the Greek healers. I asked them to fetch me doctors from Constantinople. They shall be here tomorrow."

And would I be alive by tomorrow? He thought but did not utter his doubt. The clarity of the moment was too precious and he would not waste it arguing with William on his chance to live.

William sat down by his bed, helping him to sit up a bit, lying on his chest. His linen shirt was soaked with sweat. The heat was unimaginable. Had anyone ever warned them against the summer of Constantinople they'd surely given up the pilgrimage.

William was silent for a moment, then he said abruptly, even rudely: "We've delayed our entering the city for nearly a week by now. You'd better get well soon or I'll - "

He stopped for word, and John looked up at him with a wry smile beneath his mustache. William panicking was something well-worth seeing, for he had not seen his friend panic before, not even when those unruly peasants broke into the Tower or when those Lords threaten the King with abdication. They'd been together in King Edward's household, then the Prince of Wales', the Princess' and after that their son the King's and he knew William well, even better than he knew his own brother. He could tell that William was terrified, too terrified of the thought that he was averting the thought with all his might. But he had to prepare William for it. After all that had been said and done by the monks and the healers, the chance of his survival was remote and William ought to recognize it, to prepare for it.

"But William," he answered gently, "I fear - I fear you'll have to enter the City alone."

William breathed heavily, his chest heaving under his head and when he spoke he spoke in a low, irritated tone as if on the verge of rage.

"Damn it! Don't you dare, John Clanvowe! If I offer my service to the emperor I do so with _you_! Or neither! For God's sake you must come with me!" his voice quivered and for a moment he seemed about to cry, "you promised! Or why should I leave England? Why join a crusade and come to Greece and offer to enter the Varangian Guard if not for your proposal? And you'll leave me to this alone? You will not!"

"Please, William," John tried to appease him, for William did start crying now, busy wiping his tear on his sleeve and refusing to look at him, "you're fifty. Stop acting like a child."

William glared at him.

"You know I love you."

William's complexion softened.

"Then get well," he begged, "get well and join the Varangian with me - O John, what am I to do without you?"

You'll do well without me, he thought. For the son of Neville, the child of Raby has nothing but prosperity ahead of him. But he, John Clanvowe -

He clutched at William. The clarity was fading fast and he could sense the heat which had blurred his mind and made him delirious in the past days trying seizing his body again.

"And I you," he muttered, "William, I - "

I have despised the world, and I still despise this world, which holds those men worshipful that are great warriors and fighters, who destroy the lands and wast the lands. They dispense outrageously in meat, in drink, in clothing, in building, and in living in ease, sloth, and many other sins. They wast the goods that God sends them in pride of the world and lust of their flesh. And the world endures them and holds them worshipful and make such ballads and songs to hold their deeds the longer here on earth.

"I endure this world for my love of you."

They call us lollors and losels and fools and wretches and blasphemers. They abuse us and shame us and scorn us but I know we are better than them. For our way is just.

"Wycliffe had warned us against battlements and I now see that he might be right," he forced a smile but could feel William weeping silently, "But I want to prove them ... We are not lollors ... We are King Richard's knights and the path we trend is just ... For it is Christ's path."

"Nay, speak not of Christ's path, brother John," he felt a light kiss on his forehead, and heard William's voice on top of him, "For how would Christ hold us, when we face his judgment?"

He raised his eyes to look at William, seeing the troubled look on his face and knew the fear had haunted him and he had to expel the fear as he had expelled other fears from his friend and love.

"But we are brothers," he replied gently, "we have sworn our love before God and wed in the face of the world. The world knew it. The church approved it. And the Lord has sanctified it."

> **It was also on 17 October that in a village near Constantinople in Greece the life of Sir John Clanvowe, a distinguished knight, came to its close, causing to his companion on the march, Sir William Neville, for whom his love was no less than for himself, such inconsolable sorrow that he never took food again and two days afterward breathed his last, greatly mourned, in the same village. These two knights were men of high repute among the English, gentlemen of mettle and descended from illustrious families.**
> 
> **_Westminster Chronicle_ **

**John Clanvowe and William Neville were buried in the same tomb in Galata. For the shared tomb slab of William Neville and John Clanvowe, see[here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cAgJ6HegPq8eZC7Hc3oRBnPdNvgdDu5d/view?usp=sharing).**

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  I adapt the story of Sir William Neville and Sir John Clanvowe from Alan Bray's _Friends_ and Professor K.B.McFarlane's _Lancastrian Kings and Lollard Knights_. Neville and Clanvowe both belonged to a group of Richard II's chamber knights known as lollard knights and were friends of Chaucer. Clanvowe himself was expressly literate and was the author of a theses _The Two Ways_ and the poem _The Cockoo and the Nightingale_ traditionally attributed to Chaucer. According to McFarlane their intimate association began in 1378 and lasted until their deaths. Here I've made liberal use of Clanvowe's _The Two Ways_ as quoted by McFarlane.  
>   
> The ritual of sworn brotherhood in the Medieval era was not dissimilar with the marriage process. Gerald of Wales mentioned that sworn brothers would "carry each other three times around the church. Then going into the church, before the altar and in the presence of relics of the saints, many oaths are made. Finally with a celebration of the mass and the prayers of priests, they are joined indissolubly as if by a betrothal."  
> 


End file.
